


Hotchniss Drabbles

by microwavebubbles



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff, Short, a collection of short fics, each fic will be tagged appropriately if the rating is changed, no beta we die like men, not connected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 03:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/microwavebubbles/pseuds/microwavebubbles
Summary: In preparation for my upcoming longer fic, I'm posting some shorter one-shots into a single piece.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	1. Imprint

**Author's Note:**

> Imprint; a story in which all the ways the team had a lasting effect on Jack.  
> No warnings, just some cursing in this one

Aaron didn’t know how long he had been sitting, mindless in front of the television. Lazy Sunday was a luxury he was never afforded in his working life, so to find himself sequestered in front of a nature documentary for hours in the early afternoon was a rarity. Jack often told him he needed to switch off for a while ( _a problem his teenage son never seemed to have_ ) and he had listened, becoming enamoured with nature documentaries as a kind of outlet.

He was snapped out of his mild stupor when the host, a soothing British accent, talked about imprinting. He was talking about birds, the way that at a critical point in their life, they would imprint on stimuli and be forever changed by the encounter. But it was the throwaway line, how humans do this too, to a lesser extent that caught his attention.

Restless and wandering through his home, a nondescript house on a nondescript street, he looked through the photographs he had kept. Those he had bullied the US Marshals into bringing with them when they went into Witness Protection. Those he had returned to gather from the storage locker when it was safe to return. He thought about Jack, currently with friends in a park with bikes and skateboards, being teenagers a fulltime aesthetic occupation.

He had Hayley’s colouring. His hair still the same soft blonde it had been when he was a boy, flopping over his eyebrow now. His features had sharpened, taken on more of Hotch’s, the jaw sharper, the expression firmer. He kept her kindness though, natural sensitivity to others, and a deep and overwhelming need to help. Aaron wasn’t sure which of them he got that from.

Years of therapy and acceptance had stripped Foyet from him. The nightmares infrequent and random, coming only after a stressful day at school, or a fight with a friend or Aaron. He would wake sweating and crying, unsure of the emotions coursing through him, his memory only of the dark place, the loud noises, and the feel of his mother’s hug as she said goodbye. But Jack would walk himself around the house, taking deep breaths and glasses of water as he methodically steadied his breathing, returned his heart rate to normal. If it was bad enough, he would wake Aaron, and the two would sit under the cool night in the backyard, swapping stories of Hayley and happiness and all the things she wanted him to know.

But Aaron realised, thumbing the dusty edge of a picture frame, they had taken other things with them as well.

Jack wore mismatched socks. It was easy enough to ascribe this to a teenager’s carelessness, but when he thought about it, it was Reid. Reid who had pulled up his pant legs at every function they attended to let the boys pick their favourite. Who had once whispered that that was where the magic came from; having something to smile about every day.

He loved classic art and literature; something Dave had always talked to him about, rhapsodising on the Catholicism of the Sistine Chapel and its beauty, despite the faith not being as important to him as it once was.

He was the caretaker of his friend group. Carrying bandages and water bottles wherever he went, just in case they needed it. Hotch thought fondly of every papercut he ever received, and how JJ would appear as if from nowhere, a band aid and a scold at the ready for him as she needlessly tended his wounds.

He refused to write in black ink. Something his teachers noticed, and Jack didn’t comment on, simply shrugging that he preferred the greens or purples or oranges of the pens he found. Aaron had let it go, thinking it was a minor act of rebellion, a way to buck against the perfect grades he achieved, make him have something that wasn’t perfect. Now he saw Penelope in those pen strokes, the way her reports were often scented with stone fruits and cream, lingering in the air of her electronic lair and his office alike.

From Derek, he had taken the eagle-eyed sharpness. Jack had an uncanny ability to _know_ deep in his soul when something was wrong. He would find his father on these days, ask to go to a movie, or to a store, to get him out of the house. The first few times he thought it was coincidence. But over time, it was a gentle way for Jack to help Aaron, get him out of his head on days where he was buried there. Other parents had commented, what an astute and compassionate soul his son was. Aaron felt an indescribable ache of pride in his chest when he heard that, Hayley’s final request granted by the village that had helped raise him.

And Emily. Aaron often thought of memories of her as solely his own. He couldn’t pinpoint any particular interaction Emily had with Jack. She was fond of him, loved him dearly, as the whole team did, but nothing jumped out. Instead, he held Emily in his own heart, the memories he cherished of her were often tinged blue with sadness. Her protectiveness and strength over him was a force, a tornado of affection he was never quite prepared for. She had always taken him by surprise.

But he realised, Jack had held more of Emily than any of them. It comes as a surprise, wiping his thumb over the slightly dusty surface of a photograph, the team, with their kids hoisted on shoulders, at Dave’s house, some party he couldn’t remember the purpose of.

Jack swears like her. The filthy stream of consciousness that erupted from his mouth when he stubbed his toe, or was woken early in the morning, was all Emily. He would caution from the other side of the house _“Language”_ but for some reason the peal of “ _fuckshitcuntfuckfuckshitmotherfucking-ow”_ made him smile, rather than irritated. He understood where it came from now, the untapped river of bad language that spilt forth when he was irritated.

She was there in the way he laughed when things were difficult. How when frustration and anger welled inside Aaron like a balloon, Jack would start laughing, dissipating any emotion other than lightness and joy. How Jack would sometimes give Aaron a hug, no other reason than _just because._

Running his thumb methodically across the photograph he smiled, thinking fondly of each of them in turn before the door slammed open.

“Hey Dad!” Jack’s voice rang out from the kitchen, loud and breathless. “Do we have any of those yoghurt things left?!”

“No. You ate all the yoghurt things yesterday remember?” he replied, walking into the kitchen to find his son, breathless and flushed from a day outside, the fresh air giving his skin a healthy glow.

“Damn it.” He said, grabbing milk from the door of the fridge and drinking straight from the carton.

“Jack…” he started, hearing the weary parenthood in his tone of voice.

“I know I know, use a glass, _sorry_. But it’s empty” Jack said, flashing Aaron a guilty grin as he threw the carton away.

“Do you remember Emily?” Aaron asked, the question coming forth without hesitation.

“Emmy? Yeah course I do. Why?” Jack asked, looking at his him as he groped blindly in the fridge for something to eat.

“I was just thinking about her today… realised you swear like she does sometimes” Aaron admitted.

“Oh yeah, she taught me that you know?” Jack said.

“She did?”

“Oh yeah, one of Uncle Dave’s gatherings. I fell over and hurt myself or something and she taught me to swear it out”.

“Oh god.” Aaron said, rubbing his jaw. Jack laughed.

“Nah. She was cool. Told me it was okay to be angry or sad or upset or whatever. But letting it out with some curse words and letting it go is better than bottling it up.” Jack shrugged. “She was right.”

Aaron stayed quiet, watching as Jack grabbed handfuls of fruit from the crisper drawer, shoving them into his backpack as he selected apples and peaches, filling the front of his bag.

“Anyway, I’m going to Mark’s place for a bit, is that cool?” Jack asked, looking up from his treasure hunt for stone fruits.

“Sure, home by 7 though okay?” Aaron said, watching as Jack tried to hide the chocolate bar he was slipping into his bag with a wry grin.

“Yep. No worries.” Jack said, dashing back for the door. “Oh, and Dad?”

“Mmm?” Aaron said, memories already clouding him.

“You should give Emmy a call. You’re not thinking about her in the middle of a Sunday for no reason.”

He was out the door with a flash of a smile, his presence bright as he dashed to grab his bike.

Aaron sighed, wondering if the imprint he had left on his son was his ability to see right through people, to see whose name was tattooed on their hearts.


	2. étiqueter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> étiqueter  
> In which touch starved Aaron Hotchner tries to label his feelings for Emily  
> No warnings apply

“Your hair is getting long” Emily said, her voice low, stretching long like the Sunday afternoon, a sunset that seemed to last an age.

“Is it?” Aaron asked, not looking from his book, relishing the feeling of her fingers trailing patterns through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. Ostensibly she was watching a movie, sprawled on the couch in the pinkish afternoon, a glass of wine on the end table. But realistically she was relishing the opportunity to run her fingers through his hair, the thick locks weaving between her fingers as she pushed his hair rhythmically off his forehead.

“Mmhmm, and you’re going grey” She said, finding one such offending hair and plucking it.

“Ow.” He said mildly, as she held the silver strand to the light.

“Sorry. Thought you would want to know” She grinned, resuming her light strokes across his scalp. He had his head on a pillow in her lap, his legs hanging off the end of the couch, feet bare.

“We’ve been dating three months and you’re already turning me grey” He commented, finally looking up from his book to meet her gaze, the smile twitching his lip as she poked lightly at his cheek.

She was beautiful like this, the sunlight catching her hair and turning it a hundred shades of black: like the shimmering surface of a lake at midnight. He turned back to his book as she found his temple with one hand, tapping her finger lightly against him.

His mind wandered as she dragged her fingers through his hair, twirled it half around her finger, absently drawing patterns on his scalp with her nails.

The first time she touched him had taken his breath away. She had leaned over to look at a notation in a file, steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder and he felt his whole body _relax._ It was like every muscle unclenched simultaneously, sparks in his brain at the warm weight of her palm on his shoulder. He noticed her more after that, wondered why that simple touch had elicited such a reaction.

Generally, he did not like to be touched, casual hands on his shoulder always made him flinch, especially unexpected. Since Foyet he lived his life like a rubber band, waiting to snap, rigid with tension, waiting for a blow that seemed eternally about to come. He blamed it on the stabbing, on the destruction that followed. But he knew it was deeper than that. Scars that he could trace in an unbroken line back to his father’s knuckles. He hid it well, a slight clench of his jaw each time a stranger put a friendly hand on him as they passed in the street.

Jack had changed him in that respect, he had found himself astonished by the warm glow that spread through his chest as the infant snuggled closer to him, grasped his finger in a chubby fist, dragged his hand to play. But he accepted that he would feel like this nowhere else, that casual human contact was not something he enjoyed on the whole, but merely tolerated as part of the human experience.

But when Emily had touched him, he went boneless. A brush of her hand on his was enough to make his breath catch in his chest, cover it with the clearing of his throat, a tug at his tie. He tried to remember if it had been like this with Hayley. But no moments stood out in his memory, no touches that made him feel fuzzy around the edges, made of static.

It had been four months after that first touch, he asked her out to dinner. She had been surprised, him catching her in the carpark as she was leaving. He watched as her cheeks stained pink as she agreed. He spent dinner carefully trying to hold her hand. Find the right moment to reach across the table and round his fingers on her knuckles. It was experimental, he wanted to see if it worked the other way. Eventually when they left the restaurant, he managed to lace his fingers with hers, warmth spreading through his palm and travelling all over his body as though she was electricity.

The first time Emily kissed him quieted his mind properly for the first time in years. Her lips: petal soft and parting against his was an experience like flying, weightless and heavy all at once, and the enchanted confusion on her face when they broke apart told him she felt the same.

From then, she found excuses to touch him. Would casually brush her fingers against his, place her hand on his thigh on the jet, hook her pinkie into his as they rode the elevator in silence.

The first time he pulled her apart under his fingers, he was consumed by the sensation. The way her lips rounded the syllables of his name, long and keening into pillows and sheets was a symphony, a desperate crescendo of what he already knew somewhere in his subconscious. The desperate grab of her hands on his skin, pulling him closer into her as she whispered pleas into the night was enough to drive him to the brink, often push him over with her utterance of his name in breathless pleasure.

Emily touched him in her sleep. She ran cold and he ran hot so she chased him under covers, seeking to lay her thigh across his waist, slip a hand beneath his shirt, press herself into him to leech some of his warmth into her cool skin. The first time he wrapped his arms around her, caged her body with his as she dreamed, she let out a breathless sigh that made his heart skip a beat.

When he was alone, he tried to label it. Put some kind of word on the feeling he got when she traced his lower lip with her thumb, when he splayed his palm wide across her ribcage, buried his face in her shoulder. Sometimes he would lay half on top of her, exhausted and shining with sweat and let her trail her fingers across his skin, explore his shoulder blades with her soft touch as they talked about their lives, peeling back layers of each other – exploring.

On this lazy afternoon he selfishly asked her to stay for the day. Jack with his grandfather and aunt gave him an age to be with her, just spend the day with her, enjoy her as she ate lunch – watched tv, wore only socks and slid on his hardwood floors. He had sat near her with this book, inching ever closer as she flicked channels, mindless between 24hr news, bad Lifetime movies and music. Eventually she had tugged him gently into her lap, laying a pillow for him to rest on, her hand absently threading through his hair, tracing his jaw, browbone.

As he stared at his book, not really seeing it, feeling his body relax further, he found the label he was looking for.

“Emily” he said, suddenly gripping her hand as it cupped his cheek, letting his book fall onto his chest.

“Yes?” she asked, her eyes fluttering shut as he pressed a kiss into her palm.

“I love you” he said.

She bent down towards him, his thumb running across her knuckles as he tilted his face to meet her halfway. He felt the words, rather than heard them as she spoke against his lips “I love you too”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sweetsecretskeptinside.tumblr.com


End file.
